Gryffindor Princess and the Chamber of Secrets

Chapter Ten: The Heir of Slytherin

When Hope woke up the next morning she found she was still in the hospital wing with Harry sleeping beside her. She sat up looking for Colin and saw he must now have been concealed behind a large white curtain.

She shook Harry awake gently. The boys eye fluttered open.

"Morning."

"Are you alright?", Harry asked, sitting up, "I saw you come in last night."

"I'm okay", she said.

"Did you see what attacked Colin?"

"No", She told him what had happened last night in as much detail as she could. She told him about how she went into shock and she couldn't remember much after she'd found Dumbledore.

"Last night after they gave you the sleeping draft", Harry said, "Dumbledore said he was going to talk to you about what happened. What are you going to tell him?"

"The truth", Hope said, "if this monster can attack students we need to do whatever we can to catch it."

Harry nodded, "something else happened last night", he told her.

"What?"

"Last night I had a visit from a house elf. He'd visited me once before in the summer when my aunt and uncle locked me in my room. He was the reason the ministry thought I did magic it was because the house elf did it."

"Why did a house elf do magic in your home?"

"He was trying to convince me not to go back to Hogwarts, he said that a great danger was coming to Hogwarts. Anyway, Dobby (that's his name) was the one who closed the barrier at kings cross so that Ron and I couldn't get through. He's also the one who fixed the bludger, he said he was trying to injure me enough so I would go home."

"But the monsters only supposed to be targeting muggle born's", Hope said thoughtfully, "why would he think you were an enemy of the heir?"

"No idea", said Harry, "but Dobby also said that the chamber has been opened before, but I didn't get much more out of him before you and Dumbledore showed up and he disappeared."

"That is strange."

Madam Pomfrey noticed that they were awake and came over with a breakfast tray for each of them. While they ate she tested Harrys arm and fingers and once she was satisfied she discharged them and allowed them to leave.

"Dumbledore's expecting you up in his office as soon as you can", Madam Pomfrey told her.

She bid goodbye to Harry and decided to head up to her fathers office as soon as possible. She wondered if anyone else in the school knew what had happened to Colin yet. What did they know? Would people think she had somehow been involved in the attack? She was the only other person around.

When she got to Dumbledore's office she knocked loudly on the door, hoping he was already awake. He called her in and she found him standing beside his desk of trinkets looking at a something that appeared to be a telescope.

"Hope", he smiled at her, "I was waiting for you, please take a seat."

"I didn't do anything to Colin", she said quickly.

"I know dear", he smiled at her, causing the knot in her stomach to loosen slightly, "but it is important that you tell me exactly what happened."

He pressed his finger tips together leaning onto his desk while Hope launched into the story of how she ended up with Colin that night. Once she'd finished her father was silent, deep in thought.

"The chamber of secrets is real isn't it?", Hope asked when she'd finished, "and the monster is real too, and the heir of Slytherin, and the chamber, it's been opened before hasn't it?"